I Open My Mouth, and Nothing Comes Out
by greysatmyheartstrings
Summary: If you stop, you think of him. If you sleep, you dream of him. If you try to talk, you know you'll tell him everything. So you just run. Because you can't do anything else. / Slexie, set in mid-season 8, cause GODDAMN I MISS THEM SO MUCH.


You're running all day long. You can't stop- not to think, not to sleep, not to talk, because you have to keep yourself busy. You're running through the hallways between patients, over-occupying yourself, because if you stop for a second, if you have a moment of time to yourself, you know that you'll think about _him_. As if that's not what you're already doing, running around the hospital trying to avoid him.

Your mind is its own worst enemy. _He has a girlfriend. She's great. He loves her. He doesn't love me. It's too late. We can't keep trying the same thing and hoping for a different outcome. There's no way this would ever work for us. But damn, I love him._

You love him. Too much for your own good. You've always loved him, and you always will. It was hard enough to admit that to yourself, but there's no way to dance around it. You've never felt farther away from him, but at the same time you've never loved him so much. And you feel like you're suffocating, because you can't talk to anyone about it. Meredith doesn't care and thinks you need to get over it. Derek is too busy and can only offer a shoulder to cry on. Jackson is cold and still bitter, and you can't blame him. And the one person you can tell about your problems, the one person you want to talk to, is the one that you love but can't love.

So you run instead. You run from case to case, you stay busy, you work like a fiend because that's all you can do. If you run fast enough, you can keep someone from crashing- you or the patient. If you stop, you'll think about him. If you sleep, you'll dream about him. And if you talk, you know that your words will come spilling out like tears and then he'll know. You'll inevitably wreck a relationship, and it'll be either him and Julia or him and you.

But you can't run from him forever, and eventually you'll find yourself slamming face-first into a muscular chest, and two hands grab you by the arms to hold you steady. Then you look up, see his blue eyes looking at you with concern. "Lex, are you okay?"

For a second you forget to breathe, staring back up into his eyes. Then you realize that he'd holding you, and you're leaning on him, and you jump back, brushing yourself off, and reply, "Yeah, I'm fine".

He looks at you and smiles, then he tells you that you've been acting weird lately. And you're still frozen, because you're afraid that if you open your mouth more than an inch, you'll tell him why. When you do open your mouth to say something, you're shocked to hear the words, "We need to talk."

The hallway is almost empty, and no one can hear you, so you open your mouth, ready to say what you've been holding in without anyone to talk to. You open your mouth… and nothing comes out.

There's an awkward silence as he stares at you and you feel like dying, because you had an entire speech ready and now it all turned to mush. You feel more than embarrassed. You feel like a coward. One second. Two seconds. Three.

Finally you choke out, "Um, Jackson was looking for you earlier. He needed a consult on a burn." And then you flash a smile that you hope didn't look as pained as it felt, and you run. You run to the first on call room you can find, turning off the lights and locking the door, and in the darkness, you fall on the bed and cry until your throat is dry and you're breathing in quiet gasps.

Finally you sit up and flick on the lights, drying your eyes on the sleeve of your lab coat. It's still white- you've taken to wearing waterproof mascara lately. It's been worth it.

You stand back up and walk out, shutting the door behind you with a click. Your pager beeps, and you rush back down the hall, leaving your emotions in the darkness of the on-call room. Someday, you'll tell him. You know you have to. Someday you'll have to face what you're trying not to feel. But today, you'll keep running.

* * *

 **It's been a while since I've written on here. Mark and Lexie were one of my favorite couples (on any show) of all time. I miss them too much. This little fic is just a ball of Slexie angst and pain. Hope you enjoy!**

xx, J

*I do not own Grey's Anatomy/its characters, just like I don't own a house/a car/a life. :-b


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